


Chernobyl

by AriaNoct



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Ardyn is an ass, Heavily implied reader death, Readerisinfectedwithstarscourge, Somebody please read this trash, Starscourge, Takes place just before the fall, ardyn izunia - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 01:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14727287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AriaNoct/pseuds/AriaNoct
Summary: Ardyn never meant for you to become infected with the starscourge, but here you are and this is gonna hurt.





	Chernobyl

_Oh Six_ it hurt, and the voices, _the voices,_ wouldn’t stop screaming. You were choking, _drowning,_ from the midnight tar that clogged your throat and lungs, pouring out from your mouth like an eldritch nightmare. Black spilled on the white marble steps of the Insomnian citadel. Something shifted in your bones, in your skin, in your eyes, in…. _Astrals protect me, the sun is too bright now._ Collapsing now to your hands and knees you groped out hesitantly, half-blinded by the ghoulish discharge that seeped out of ruined eyes. A clawed hand met leather and gripped tight.

            Ardyn Izunia had been forced to bear witness to more monstrosities in his sempiturnal life than anyone deserved to suffer through. The long years had seen him jaded, given him a bitter sort of numbness that was still settling ever further into his being. Names and faces held no meaning outside of their immediate use. Pawns fell and knights crumbled. The sun rose and set with all the paltry significance of the minute hand ticking away. He’d watched with frozen eyes as thousands fell to the disease he had once given everything to end, the disease that now seeped out from his very core. He was Chernobyl incarnate, lethal in the way he poisoned what he touched, haunting in the way he decayed.

            Every touch, every breathy gasp that escaped your lips in the dead of night, every heart-felt confession, all equaled out to your death sentence. For the sake of those clandestine moments that made him feel something like human, the consequences didn’t matter. You were his pawn to use and abuse as he saw fit, his excuse to withdraw from a world that felt cold, _alien,_ empty. So long as you provided his escape, what could your brief life matter in the face of all that he was? Still, he hadn’t thought that the time spent by his side would necessarily result in _this;_ it had never once been important enough to consider _._ Even so, something in the way you crawled towards him then, eyes begging for aid even as scourged tears traced a path down your face, moved him. How was it that only now that you were broken in every sense of the word, did he finally look and see _you._ Hollow creature that he was, this was something felt.

            He got down on one knee then, a mockery of a scene you once imagined differently, gripped your wrist, and forced it away from his ankle with apparent ease, “Dear, you always did look just _so_ lovely in black.”

            Whatever flicker of humanity that was left to him would not be allowed to show itself, not to you, not to anyone. He wasn’t exactly saddened by your imminent demise, heavens no; however, he would swallow down any truth that could make him just a little colder, just a little more heartless. Ardyn reveled in being the villain and found his home down in his hate. Ever the dramatic, it suited his finer sensibilities. He would take from you whatever pain you had to give him and laugh while he suffocated himself in it.

            That was the moment you realized the man you so erroneously believed you could change was going to watch you die with a smile on his face. You were going to die because you had loved him, and because he had loved you in his own twisted fashion, the bond poisoning you both all the while. You tried to remove your arm from his grasp, but he was too strong. Helpless, you watched as he brought your wrist to his lips and laid a glacial kiss upon it.

            A practiced smirk painted itself on his face, “Oh, now don’t be like _that._ I’d almost believe you were angry with me. Look over there,” he let your arm fall and motioned to the sky with a sweeping, grand gesture, “Can you see the sun, love? Here soon what’s left of you will be dust in the wind, and I won’t aid you.”

            You spat out a glob of the tar onto his boot, _“_ Theatrical as ever, you _fucking bastard!”_

Pain exploded in your jaw and stars danced beneath your eyelids. You were falling, breaking bones on every step on your way down the citadel entryway. A bruise was already forming where his boot made contact with your face. The crawling in your gut intensified as your skin split apart, miasma seeping from the wounds. Moaning, you looked up towards Ardyn as he walked down towards you. Even without the starscourge peeking through, he was the epitome of all aberrations.  

            “Behave, would you? We don’t need a repeat of all that,” in an uncharacteristic show of softness, he brushed a lock of hair away from your face before lifting you up and carrying your immobile form back over the stairs and through the entryway.

            You watched in horror as the darkness of that ruined citadel swallowed you and shut away the sun. The voices were getting louder now, screaming and echoing in your head. A dark chuckle issued forth from Caelum lips. Had you never noticed before how cold his embrace was? Had he always been so deathly pale, and had those yellow eyes always glowed so bright?

            “Go to sleep now pet, it will all be over soon enough.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So if you're reading this then that means you read the trash I posted and I just wanted to say thank you! This is my first time writing for Ardyn, and I was really scared to post this at first. Granted, I'm scared to post anything I write. I've got this headcannon that Ardyn visited Insomnia again between the fall and the events at Zegnautus keep, he's been working towards it for so long I don't think he would have stayed away. That's why he's in Insomnia and the sun is still out in this drabble. Y'all know he had to sit on that throne at least once before the showdown. Anyway, tell me what you think!


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